Game of Thrones: Fanfic: Needed elsewhere

[m_findlow]

Title: Needed elsewhere
Fandom: Game of Thrones
Characters: Daenerys, Jon
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 939 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Game of Thrones, any, falling in love again" at fic_promptly
Summary: Love comes along at all the wrong times

'What happened to your hand?' Dany asked, lifting it gently to examine it, and placing a tender kiss in the centre of his palm. The other scars on his body seemed too sensitive a thing to ask about. She remembered what Ser Davos had said - he took a knife in the heart for his people. More than one if the scar tissue was anything to go by. Seeing them for the first time when he'd returned from beyond the Wall had shocked her. Running her hands and lips over them last night had been something else entirely, like worshipping them, or trying to heal them with whatever powers had been bestowed upon her. Asking about his hand seemed so innocent by comparison.

He flexed it involuntarily, noting that it wasn't stiff like it usually was. Up north, on the Wall, the mornings were so cold that it often grew so stiff and achy overnight that he could barely clasp it around his sword without first exercising it back into action. This morning it wasn't stiff at all. It was warm and the tendons supple.

He remembered the days when it had been like that before, wrapped around Ygritte's warm body through the night. Until now she'd become a distant memory. All he could remember now was the pale skin and even paler silver hair of the body lying on top of him. He didn't think he'd ever love again. Not as a brother of the Night's Watch, their Lord Commander, King of the North, or even as a bastard son of a house torn apart by war and fueding. "You don't know what you'd be giving up," his Uncle Benjen had said. If he had known, he would have foresworn anyway. Love left you unguarded, vulnerable, clouded your thoughts. When he most needed to focus on the problem at hand, all he could think of was how soft Dany's lips might be, and how much he wanted to have his tongue wrapped around hers.

'Jon?'

He pulled his hand away, looking at it. It wasn't nearly as scarred anymore, but scarred enough.

'The first time I ever came face to face with one of the night walkers. We brought one of our brother's body back from beyond the Wall. In the night, he went to attack the Lord Commander.'

'The white walker burned you?'

'No. I grabbed a lantern with my bare hand and threw it, setting the creature it alight to give us more time.'

She reached down and picked up his hand again, kissing the scarred tissue ever so softly.

'I'd never seen anything like it,' he said. 'Swords didn't kill it, and fire only slowed it down.'

She'd see them for herself now, remembering that awful day. Her children had cut through their ranks with fire but it could not stop them fully. Her children... Viserion was gone now. It made her want to weep.

'My brother...' she wanted to laugh at the idea she took anything her brother had said to heart, let alone consider it wisdom. 'He once told me that the dragon had nothing to fear. Fire cannot harm the dragon. That dragons were the greatest power on this earth. For a long time I believed him. I have stood in flames myself and let them burn all around me, leaving nothing but a pile of ash, and walked away untouched by their flame. I do not fear fire, or any man that would stand in my way. But those things... Those things frighten me.'

He pulled her closer, feeling their bodies press skin to skin beneath the soft furs. They scared him too, more than anything he could have ever imagined. He'd rather stand alone faced against an army of thousands, Longclaw gripped in his hand. A man with a sword did not frighten him. A man with a sword was just that. You only feared him if his sword skills were better than your own.

But a thing that could not be defeated by sword or fire? A thing that could kill a dragon with a single spear of ice? How could they fight against that? Dragonglass could shatter a single white walker, but how to kill tens of thousands of them? He knew the answer. Kill the Night King. But to get to him, he'd have to cut through his entire army.

"You and I were brought back to this world for a purpose, Jon Snow. You don't have to believe in Red R'hllor, you need only follow the path he has laid for you," Beric Dondarrion's words rang in his head. What purpose? To bring Daenerys Stormborn north to fight? Or perhaps to die. What use did a God of fire have for a woman who would not be touched by flame?

Dany ran her fingers across his chest, avoiding the scars like rings of wood avoided a knot.

'Promise me, Jon, that you will do everything you can to stay alive.'

'I'm needed where I'm needed,' he said, feeling the weight of the whole world resting on him. He had a whole kingdom of people whose needs came before his own.

'The North needs you. The Seven Kingdoms needs you.' She paused. 'I need you.'

He reached up and ran his hand through her silvery hair. It was so soft, just as soft as the

skin that set his own on fire. She truly was made of dragonfire. A Targaryen to rule the world. 'We need you. The whole world needs you,' he replie. He didn't think there was any room left for him to need her.